Health Care Delivery for Heart Failure Patients During The COVID-19 Pandemic; A Consensus of The Saudi Heart Failure Working Group (SAUDI-HF)

Abeer Bakhsh; Maryam AlQaseer; Fakhr AlAyoubi; Rima S Bader; Kamal Alghalayini; Abdelfatah ElAsfar; Waleed Alhabeeb

doi:10.37616/2212-5043.1073

Health Care Delivery for Heart Failure Patients During The COVID-19 Pandemic; A Consensus of The Saudi Heart Failure Working Group (SAUDI-HF)

J Saudi Heart Assoc. 2020 Jun 22;32(5):20-23. doi: 10.37616/2212-5043.1073. eCollection 2020.

Authors

Abeer Bakhsh¹, Maryam AlQaseer², Fakhr AlAyoubi³, Rima S Bader⁴, Kamal Alghalayini⁴, Abdelfatah ElAsfar⁵, Waleed Alhabeeb⁶

Affiliations

¹ Prince Sultan Cardiac Centre, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
² King Fahad Specialist Hospital, E1 Cluster, Dammam, Saudi Arabia.
³ College of Pharmacy, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
⁴ King Abdul Aziz University, Jeddah, Saudi Arabia.
⁵ Cardiac Medina Center, Medina Munawara, Saudi Arabia.
⁶ Cardiac Science Department, King Saud University, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.

Abstract

The Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic led to global and national rapid health system changes to treat the affected patients and prevent the spread of the virus. The social distancing, redirecting resources, and nationwide lockdown led to the cancellation of non-urgent hospital visits and interruption of continuity of care for patients with chronic cardiac conditions such as heart failure (HF). This consensus document addresses the domains of health care delivery that are affected by the pandemic. It explains the current situation of health care delivery to heart failure patients and further recommendation on how to overcome this. Thus, maintaining quality and continuity of care to the HF population.

Keywords: COVID-19; Heart failure; Pandemic.